A Silver Standard of Health

The school's vision is 'With faith we live, learn and grow together,' and this holistic approach extends to all areas of school life. SENDCo Mrs Owens takes up the story for the 'health' side of things...

"We started last academic year, in July 2018, and started to put things in place. These included a 'daily mile' course, with regular walking and running for 10 minutes at a time.

"We baselined the children in order to show improvement, and the next thing we introduced were healthy snacks. We also carried pupil and staff wellbeing surveys, to make sure everyone is at their best both physically and mentally. Parents were told about the new initiatives that we were introducing in order to achieve this status.

"Our Pupil Premium strategy takes into account the needs: the school also provides free healthy snacks for the most vulnerable.

"We've already got a Bronze Award.

"The Silver Award has a lot of criteria in 4 categories - up to 45 areas! We had to produce an action plan with clear outcomes, impact and benefits for pupils, and further surveys.

"In a Pupil Voice survey, 96% of children stated that the daily mile helped keep them healthy, and comments included 'I can do more now than at the start', 'it makes me learn better', and 'I can beat my friends now!'

"Comments from staff included 'it is really effective at giving a brain break and a clear transition into the next lesson' and 'children value and see the importance of exercise, they know that this helps them in the long term.'

"We now have updated policies in place, and we've got 3 years to aspire to Gold so we're seeing what the next steps might be!"

www.trinityprimaryacademy.dsat.org.uk